Ever thought of giving your tenant a welcome to your new home gift?

i use the same gift basket that my mortgage company sent me.--------None

I usually don't give a gift either. But once, I gave a small Home Depot gift card because I somehow forgot to get fresh blinds for some of the windows lol.

I used to give my tenants gift card for there kids. $20.00 to Toys-r-Us for kids under 12 and $25.00 for kids between 13 and 18. This was for paying on time and not stressing me out. One tenant sold this gift cards. That was the last year we gave out gifts. 

She had 10 kids. She sold $20.00 gift cards for $15.00. 

We have our new residents come to our office to pick up their keys, when they do that they will recieve a welcome home gift basket, its our branded logo bag, with 2 waterbottles, a roll of paper towels, toilet paper , and a few other things that you can actually buy at the $1 dollar store, We do this for 2 reasons, number one is to let them know where our offics is and to humanize us as people and not just a company, this simple gift goes a long way to setting the right tone with the client we feel, but most importantly we go over our lease and our rules of operation and what we expect of them as tenants in our properties. We set them up on ACH auto banking for their rent, we show them how to log into their portal to place maint requests, we also explain how our eviction process works and what will happen if they do not pay. 

We have learned by doing all this we get rid of 90% of the problems out of the way before they even move in. This we feel has helped us keep a less then 2% eviction rate with over 400 SF homes.

I don't think I'll ever give a brand new tenant a gift. I just don't see much of a benefit in doing it. I have no problem giving a gift to show appreciation to good long term tenants though, cause I feel like that can go a long way when you know they will appreciate it.

I don't usually... I just make sure to be available for any questions especially initially. I don't think it makes a big difference as far as ensuring they are more compliant with paying rent and maintaining your property. A gift will be forgotten relatively quickly in my opinion. Especially if they are long term tenants. I personally do not want to make it a periodic thing either. 

I gave $25 GC's to Publix this last Chistmas after I did my walk-thoughs.  I had my property management buy and deliver them.  My objectives were:

First, put a face and a positive spin on "the man".

Second, show the same customer appreciation I would in any other business where customer loyalty is important.

Third, celebrate Christmas.

I believe I accomplished my objectives.  If it saves me any money on turns or ? it was a good investment. 

Thoughts?